


There Are Shadows in His Belly

by Hecate



Category: Ghost Rider (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 22:37:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t feel as lonely as he used to. (post-movie)</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Are Shadows in His Belly

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.

Blackheart was born without a soul, and when the Ghost Rider judged him, he only judged those who left an imprint on him, the ghost and ghouls wrapped around the devil's son. There was something else, too, something deep and made of hell, that wrapped itself around Johnny in return. It didn't let go, not even after Mephisto took Blackheart back to hell. Johnny tells himself that it doesn't matter, because he judged Blackheart and that was enough. Enough for the Ghost Rider to win. Enough to end it.

For a little while.

Blackheart talks to him in his dreams now, to Johnny and not the shape of fire and bone he sometimes becomes. The devil's son is like an eel inside of his mind, writhing in the darkest part of it, and when Johnny wakes up, he sees him. He sees pale skin and dark eyes and stares at the dark ceiling until the dream's afterimage fades away.

But the dream comes back only hours later with a voice that echoes and eyes black like a night without the hope of dawn. The dream always comes back.

Sometimes it stays even when his eyes are open.

“Johnny,” Blackheart says, and the shadows in the room laugh at Johnny. He tries not to listen, stumbles out of the bed, turns on the light. Turns to see that the shadows are gone. But the laughter is still in his head.

It's still there weeks after Roxanne left him, after the love of his life turned out too small for the Ghost Rider. Or maybe, Johnny thought, the Ghost Rider simply wasn't good enough for her. Maybe he was a monster after all. Maybe he'd turned into one after his eyes met Blackheart's for the final time. Sometimes he thinks that he's just like Blackheart now. Just like the laughter and the dreams that are his only companions.

The shadows get deeper with the passing weeks, turning into something almost solid for the short moment between waking and being awake. Johnny thinks he might be going insane, thinks that Blackheart might be returning. He stares into his empty room before falling asleep, watching the world and looking for signs. 

When he falls asleep, he's alone. When he wakes up, the room feels crowded with darkness. Some part of him yearns to be closer to it, yearns for a touch of hell. A part that wasn't his months ago but is his now. 

He doesn't feel as lonely as he used to.

He starts talking to the walls and shadows ten months after San Venganza, talks about the new routine that governs his life now. Crime and hell and all the people he sends there. No one replies. But at dawn, he dreams of the answers.

At night, when he chases down the streets, when he's bones and fire, he reaches across reality and wears down the walls around it. He pushes against them with every soul he judges and he feels the darkness inside of him laugh. Sometimes he hears an echo from the other side.

Some mornings he wakes up and doesn't remember the night before. Some mornings he has to blink away the sleep and stare at the daylight before he remembers his name. It feels strange in his mouth when he says it.

Ten months and the shadows turn into shapes, a body, a man. Johnny sees him when he wakes up, sees nothing when he's awake; catches himself reaching out for something that's not there...yet. He tells himself to turn to research, to find out what is happening. To get ready for a fight that's sure to come. Instead, he lies in silence and breathes in rhythm with the moving darkness.

When a sound wakes him nights later, he isn't surprised.

Whispered words in a strange language, an almost solid noise stretching over his body, curling around him. “Johnny,” it says, finally turning into English, and he smiles in greeting. Something inside of him, something Blackheart left behind months ago, goes heavy and real. “Let me come in, Johnny,” the voice says, and it's Blackheart and hell speaking against Johnny's skin, and it’s something outside of his control that answers.

“Yes,” it says, Johnny says, and he hears Blackheart laughing once again, smiles because Blackheart sounds happy and this suddenly means something to him. He gets up slowly, closes his eyes and sees flames dance across his eyelids, sees where the world is weak and hell is strong. He turns into the Ghost Rider in the middle of the bedroom, pushes against reality for the last time, feels it give in under his touch.

Something is pushing back against him. It feels like darkness, like the new part of him. It feels like something he used to hate.

He hears someone screaming, and realizes that it's his own voice. For a moment he's surprised. For a moment he feels pain and fear, he feels like himself once again. Then he stops caring.

When Blackheart steps through the wall of nothing that runs between earth and hell, Johnny smiles.


End file.
